Prologue #2
Handing Halsey a tall crystal flute with bubbling white wine, his friend rolled his eyes. “No officer of any ilk, my friend. That is the talent of a vice admiral’s lady.”
“Who? I must meet her.” Halsey had a discerning eye for the ladies.
At thirty-four, he was a bachelor, single—and happy of it, too.
No time did he have for a woman, specifically a wife, in his busy life.
He was an adoring son to his widowed mother and doting older brother to his five younger sisters.
That was enough for him to handle at the moment.
He often found a lady who caught his eye—and he acted on the attraction if she were a widow or a lady unattached.
But he’d lately discovered few ladies could keep him attracted.
One night in bed, perhaps three if she were educated and witty, but that was all he gave.
One day, he’d told himself and his inquiring mother and curious sisters, he would find a lady he could adore for years after.
So far, he had not found such a prize, and his family had to be happy with that.
He had no need to marry on whim or for land or money.
Therefore, he would marry because he liked the lady and found her interesting enough to tie her to him for decades to come.
And what of love, asked his womenfolk? He told them he believed in it for others.
But since he hadn’t felt it in his own life, he did not think it existed.
Meanwhile, he did like women. Their humor, their coquettish ways, even their fashions, made him smile.
He wondered if he needed a lady who was so serious he had to make her smile.
Here tonight, he had surveyed the few ladies in attendance.
Only three women graced the reception. All were senior officers’ wives.
He had been at his finest when he met each of them.
Women talked, and often of matters that they shouldn’t.
In the past hour, he’d learned that one was lively and very good at social conversation.
Another was shy and failed to easily navigate any polite conversation.
The third was a little bird, flitting about the groups of men with lust in her flashing blue eyes.
Halsey thought a moment. He’d been told that Corsini’s so-called friend, DeMoray, had brought his wife here? He’d not met her yet. “Is she DeMoray’s wife?”
“No.” Corsini leaned near to confide in him. “His special friend.”
Ah. His mistress. Halsey nodded. Mistresses were intriguing ladies who knew how to skirt a topic or give you all the details without the flick of an eyelash. “I’d like to meet her.”
“She only recently graced us with her presence.” Corsini took a sip of his champagne. “It is said neither she nor her lover wish to have her near other men. Vice Admiral Jean Rossard is very careful with her.”
“Ha! Does she have a pox?” Halsey joked.
“Far from it. She is lovely beyond belief. Plays the piano as if she were Beethoven and keeps to her protector alone. For that, the gossips say, her man is very grateful.”
“Now I am interested.” Halsey raised his glass in the direction of the fortepiano. “At the least, let’s go take a look and verify how pretty she is.”
However, the crowd did not give way easily. The push Corsini and he had to make was so vigorous, it was almost rude. Even at that, they were four deep facing the lady. All around them murmured. Some gasped.
Just then, the pianist missed a note.
Someone near to Halsey said the lady never missed.
Suddenly she took up the music again.
But a murmur went through the guests, then dropped to utter silence.
“What’s wrong?” Halsey asked Corsini, because he could see no problem.
His friend inserted himself between two naval captains and craned his neck. Halsey followed.
Corsini turned around, his large black eyes locked on Halsey’s. “Not good.”
“San Remo?” Halsey tried to catch Corsini as he injected himself into another tight knot of curious guests.
Corsini returned to Halsey’s side. “Vaillancourt,” Corsini whispered, and took his arm to position them both with a clearer view of the pianist. There, at the far end of the instruments, stood a man whom Halsey had not yet met here tonight. The fellow stared at the lady.
The man’s name surprised him. The deputy of French security chief Joseph Fouché was here?
Halsey’s heart picked up pace. In his previous sojourns to France to gain intelligence, he’d never glimpsed Vaillancourt.
Heard of him, certainly. Often. He even knew his description.
Handsome. Darkly charming—and a devil. Fouché’s henchman. But here? Not Paris. Why?
Halsey had to see the man more clearly. But he was blocked, so he turned to his friend. “Why has the pianist stopped?”
Corsini froze, his gaze going dead. “Vaillancourt.”
Then the sea of people parted and Halsey could take two steps closer. At the piano, behind the bench, a tall, dark-haired man bent toward the pianist. Vaillancourt looked pleasant enough as he addressed the lady who had played so beautifully.
To Halsey, she was in profile. Her gentle forehead, elegant, straight nose, and plush lips all recommended her.
But then, so much more did as well. A lithe creature with glorious, full breasts, she wore a burnt-orange-and-gold gown of silken tissue.
The transparent fabric clung to her large, round nipples and tiny waist, then down over her hips and long, lean legs.
On her head, she wore a huge gold-and-black turban, beneath which she had swept up her hair.
Only a few tendrils of honey-blonde tresses fell about her sharply cleft cheek.
Vaillancourt extended his hand to her. If he were attempting to appear the chivalrous gentleman either for the crowd or for her, he succeeded. Save for his mouth. That was a cruel slash of determination.
“Come,” Vaillancourt commanded the lovely lady. Halsey could read the man’s stern lips. “We will talk now,” he told her.
She stared at him, breathing deeply so that her breasts heaved with the effort. Then, mid-melody, she rose. The air, previously swaying to the effervescence she drew from the keys, turned heavy.
Dread followed in Halsey’s heart as Vaillancourt grabbed the lady’s upper arm, nails biting into her delicate skin. Halsey grimaced as the man led her away. Down the hall toward the private quarters at the end, Vaillancourt escorted her as serenely as if he were her beau or her husband.
But something in the set of her shoulders and the small steps of her long legs told Halsey that she did not wish to go. Not now. Not with him. Never with him.
Halsey knew the man was an amoral bully who arrested women, men, and children without warrant or even cause.
He’d made his reputation on his ruthlessness.
Rumor had it that he’d shown his weakness for one woman, the lady now married to an Englishman who guarded her day and night with his own hired men.
Since that night when he had disgraced himself in front of his colleagues, Vaillancourt had shown himself to be valiant—and combative to any who countered him.
But as Halsey watched the man all but drag the lady away, he suddenly had the urge to intervene to protect the beautiful woman from a man who had no good intentions.
To rush toward the pair and snag her from him.
To put her on his own arm and walk her away to a garden of safety—anywhere, but far from that man who harmed and charmed, then deceived so many.
Halsey took a step forward.
But you cannot. He halted. His mind rebelled.
He was here as a Frenchman, a good citizen of the French state. Here to do business with the military and the navy. Besides, countrymen did not debate the authority of the deputy of police. Not ever. Not unless one wished to be the focus of Vaillancourt’s wrath.
“Another drink?” Corsini asked, his gaze on the couple as they disappeared through the wooden door that closed with a heavy thud.
Halsey would have to forget her, forget what he saw. “Oui, a large cognac will do.”
“D’accord.”
Minutes later, supper was called. The guests filed back toward the formal dining room at the public end of the chateau. Vaillancourt did not reappear. Nor did the young woman he had so summarily escorted away. Halsey itched to run through the chateau, find the two, and take the lady far from here.
Hours later, in their carriage back to Corsini’s rented chateau in Cherbourg, Halsey needed to know more about Vaillancourt and the lady he had taken.
Corsini inhaled, a frown on his face. “You do not know the depths to which Vaillancourt will stoop to drive home his power.”
“Tell me.” Halsey had some idea, but needed details. One did not fight without knowledge of one’s opponent.
“He was a leader of the Croix Rouge Quartier, radicals who committed the worst abuses during the Terror. We know he is a particular bastard when it comes to intimidating women. He stalked Amber, Lady Ramsey, with a ruthless intent. She now lives in England with her husband.”
Halsey grew more fearful about what had happened to the pianist. “I have met her.” Was she the woman about whom many whispered?
“He demanded she become his mistress.”
“I had no idea of that.”
“Hmm. Well, it is said she is the only woman he has ever loved. If one can believe a man like that loves anyone.”
“How did she escape him?” Halsey needed to know if the lovely pianist stood a chance of it.
“Viscount Ramsey, ever protective of her, carried her out of Vaillancourt’s house one night when she thought she had been poisoned by him. Ramsey spirited her away from Vaillancourt and Paris, then home to England with the help of Jacques Durand.”
“Our famous smuggler,” Halsey said with a laugh, but his sight was filled with the image of the lady who had been led away by that fiend.
“Vaillancourt runs all the agents here in France for Fouché. All too well, I will tell you.”
Halsey suspected that the grand minister would have a henchman to do his dirty work. “And now he sends double agents to Southern England by the droves.” It’s my job to catch them.
Halsey had caught one such spy two months ago.
One more last winter. He believed there had to be more in England collecting information, sending it home.
Corsini had been kind to work with him here.
He was Scarlett Hawthorne’s man, always had been, and Halsey had no one his equal in Paris or anywhere in France.
From this operation together, Halsey wished they might form a bond and an agreement, if not now then in the future, to work together.
He gazed at the Italian, hope in his heart. “Do you have any evidence to help you catch them all?”
“Some. We know that the famous actress Charmaine Massé, who ran to England during the Terror, was his agent in London. She died of syphilis. Her young sister Vivienne, who is now Lady Appleby, Tate Cantrell’s wife, was the one to reveal to us her sister’s actions.
Charmaine has written a list, which she gave to Viv. ”
Alarm mixed with delight spread through Halsey. “How reliable do you believe that list to be?”
“We test it. Go after those we suspect. One name turned out to be accurate. The others? We will learn.”
Halsey envied the extent of Corsini’s network. “I begin to think it would be best if I blend my agents with those you run here and in England.”
“For that you need the approval and cooperation of Scarlett Hawthorne,” Corsini admitted with a sigh. “She does indeed run a ring of agents here on the Continent.”
“You lead them?” Halsey asked pointedly.
Corsini brushed his trouser leg. “I run the French ring, appointed by Lord Ashley and his wife. The Ramseys, too. But hundreds more exist all over the Continent.”
“And the young woman Vaillancourt took away this evening?” The image of the blonde beauty rising to that man’s command boiled Halsey’s blood. “Is she yours?”
“Our protocol is that an agent knows only to whom they report and from whom they receive. So I simply cannot answer you. But I will say this—she does not have to be a suspected agent to warrant Vaillancourt’s interest. She could be anyone.
Or simply a young lady whose looks appeal to him. I do not know.” Corsini shrugged.
“Still,” Halsey said as he winced and stared out at the star-studded sky, “that is the infamous Vaillancourt. I am afraid for her.”
“As am I. Tomorrow when I visit DeMoray, I will ask him if the lady has returned to her protector.”